


Aubrey

by theramblinrose



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, aubrey episode, fast and loose with canon, my own take on what could have happened, smr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24094531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theramblinrose/pseuds/theramblinrose
Summary: MSR, Season 2.  They went to Aubrey to investigate a routine homicide.  It was a simple case and a quick trip.  Mulder couldn’t have imagined, though, how much would be revealed to him.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

AN: This is my own little take off of the “Aubrey” episode. I’m playing fast and loose with canon. There will be at least one other part of this (coming up soon). I blame my darling chakochic (AKA “trash panda”) for everything (and I know she accepts it). LOL I fully admit that I’m playing fast and loose with canon for my (and hopefully your) entertainment.

I own nothing from The X-Files.

If you decide to read, I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

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Dana Scully did her best to ignore the dull, pounding headache that she’d been ignoring for almost two days now. It was from missing sleep and skipping coffee when she desperately needed it. She could diagnose her own symptoms without a problem.

The case appeared to be a routine homicide case. A woman named B.J. Morrow—a local detective, nonetheless—had dug up a body that belonged to a man that disappeared in 1942. Her first story about how she found the remains had said that she didn’t know what had driven her to dig up the body. She’d done it on impulse alone. Her second story, which was really no more believable than the first, was that she’d seen dogs sniffing around the area and digging for the bones—bones that hadn’t attracted dogs in all these years. Her strange testimony aside, the only other thing that made this homicide more than random uncovering of a decades lost body, was that there was some evidence that might very well link the homicide to others that had taken place.

Yes, at first glance, it looked like a routine homicide case, but Scully already knew that probably wasn’t the case. It seemed that, no matter how mundane and routine something might appear, there was always something more to it once she and her partner, Fox Mulder, got involved.

“I think that it’ll turn up that Harry Cokely killed more than they originally believed he killed,” Scully mused, talking to Mulder as he manipulated the computer to do the work that he wanted it to do. Mulder was much more likely to find the strange explanation for what was taking place—a practice which had earned him the nickname “Spooky” Mulder—while he left it to Scully to find the more practical explanations. 

“You might be right,” Mulder ceded.

“It’s so rare to hear you say that, Mulder,” Scully said, swallowing down the hint of amusement she felt. “It’s almost disarming. Like you’re giving up already.” 

“I prepared myself for the fact that it could be a cut and dry serial murder before we ever left,” Mulder offered. “Still—you have to admit that there’s something odd about B.J.” 

“Odd?” Scully prompted, pushing Mulder into putting his thoughts into words. He stopped fiddling with the computer a moment while he considered what response he might make. He didn’t have a chance to say anything, though, because B.J. Morrow appeared in the room.

“Find anything?” She asked.

“We thought the slashes might match,” Mulder offered. “We expected the same ‘sister’ carved here that was found before. But the computer says it’s not a match. You OK?” 

Scully had been studying the computer screen, but she turned to see that B.J. was clearly under some duress. She stared at the remains on the table near them, and she appeared almost faint. Scully stepped toward her, out of instinct, to offer some physical support. 

“B.J., would you like to sit down?” Scully said. 

“I’m—not—I’m not well,” B.J. stammered. “Excuse me.” She barely got the last two words out before she rushed out of the room. 

Scully walked back over to the computer to look over Mulder’s shoulder as he enlarged the image and made some effort to try to identify any kind of possible pattern that they could locate within the scratches that had been made on the victim’s chest. 

“See, Scully? Odd,” Mulder offered.

“Do you think—some of her jumpiness could have come from the circumstances surrounding her presence out there in the first place?” Scully asked. Mulder abandoned his temporarily futile work of trying to read the scratches like hieroglyphics. 

“What do you mean?” He asked. “She was having trouble with the car…”

Scully smiled to herself.

“You can’t honestly believe that, Mulder,” Scully said. “There’s hardly anything out there except the motel. It’s the perfect place to go if you needed to meet someone in secret.” 

The expression on Mulder’s face was endearing. To be one of the smartest men that she’d ever met, Mulder could be rather dense when there was something that simply didn’t register on his radar. 

“What do you mean, Scully? You can’t be suggesting that B.J. had anything to do with the murder,” Mulder said. 

“Not at all,” Scully said. “I just feel like there’s information here that we don’t have yet. B.J.’s presence out there, and maybe some of her reaction to being found out there, may have to do with the clandestine nature of her affair with Lieutenant Tillman.” 

“How do you know they’re having an affair?” Mulder asked.

His surprise, Scully told herself, had everything to do with the fact that he hadn’t realized that the two people were involved in an affair, and had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she and Mulder had only recently admitted their feelings for one another and begun their own affair—something they hadn’t really brought out into the open just yet. 

Choosing the explanation that Mulder was only surprised at himself for not having picked up on anything, Scully responded to him. 

“A woman can sense things, Mulder.”

He smirked at her. 

“You’re suggesting a man can’t?” Mulder asked.

The simple words stirred up something inside Scully. Her stomach churned, slightly, in response to the idea that a man could sense things he wasn’t looking for. Her pulse picked up. Her face grew warm. They were all common symptoms of anxiety. She ignored the anxiety, and she dismissed any concern she had. 

“Evidently not,” she offered. “You keep working. I’m going to check on B.J.”

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Scully found B.J. in the bathroom, washing her face in the sink. As a show of female solidarity, Scully ripped a few of the paper napkins free from the dispenser and handed them to B.J. so that she could dry her face. 

“Feeling better?” Scully asked.

“Yes. I just…” B.J. stopped. She’d started an explanation for her quick exit from the room, but she left it hanging there. 

Scully’s stomach churned, and she swallowed against the gentle suggestion, from her own body, that she might be sick. The building was stifling—although she hadn’t recognized the temperature before. The whole place smelled faintly of mildew, and the bathroom reminded Scully, immediately, that B.J. had only recently been sick herself. 

Scully wasn’t exactly given to being the overly emotional type, but sometimes things changed. Sometimes people were compelled, by one thing or another, to act in ways that were at least a little removed from how they might normally conduct themselves.

Scully felt an odd sort of kinship with the woman that she didn’t really know at all. She felt like a part of her was tugged toward B.J. Something in her wanted to reach out to the woman and relate to her. It was nothing more than hormones, Scully told herself, but even she was given to acting on hormonal impulse from time to time. 

“You were out there because you were at the motel, weren’t you?” Scully asked. B.J. eyed Scully, and then she redirected her gaze back toward the mirror. “It’s just a hunch.” 

“A good one,” B.J. confirmed. She sighed. Maybe she wanted to talk about this. Maybe she needed to say it to someone, and Scully was safe. Scully relaxed, leaning against the wall of the bathroom. Her earlier uneasiness was still churning, but it was fainter now and easier to push into the background of her mind. 

“You were meeting Lieutenant Tillman,” Scully offered.

“Brian,” B.J. said. It was both a way to offer confirmation and to request that Scully use first names, as she’d been asked to do, while working the case. The people of Aubrey, Missouri, preferred to be informal. 

“Inter-office relationships can be challenging,” Scully offered. 

B.J. looked at her, then, and a jolt of realization surged through Scully, tugging just behind her navel. She wasn’t the only woman who could sense things. There was also the clear understanding that there was no judgement in the dirty, dingy bathroom.

“Especially when he’s married,” B.J. said. She looked back at Scully and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see a ring in there.” 

Scully sucked in a breath. She considered the fact that somebody else—a stranger—knew the secret. There was something oddly liberating about it, and it was even more so liberating to know that B.J. Morrow had no reason to make this something that had to be discussed, in any way, among their superiors. 

Inter-office relationships were frowned upon, to some degree, though not outright forbidden. There were many complications that could come from an inter-office relationship gone bad. Of course, at this point, they were in too deep to simply back away and say that this wasn’t going to happen. It had already happened, and neither of them wanted it to end. They didn’t intend to keep it a secret forever, though. They intended to share the information. They were just waiting.

Scully knew, though, that they couldn’t wait too long—even if Mulder hadn’t yet sensed any urgency in the matter. 

Scully couldn’t imagine the level of complication that might arise if Mulder, like Brian Tillman, were a married man.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Scully asked.

“Does it show?” B.J. asked.

“No,” Scully said. “Not yet.” 

B.J. made eye contact with her—long and unbroken eye contact. Scully felt the tugging inside of herself, again. She could diagnose her own symptoms. She did it all the time. She’d spent so much time studying medicine—and studying every minute detail of the human body, brain, and the way those things worked together—that she could detect even miniscule changes in her own body when she wasn’t determined to ignore them. 

She also believed in what she had said. Women had something of a sixth sense, sometimes. It had served her well as an FBI agent, but she knew she wasn’t the only woman who possessed such an ability to read others. 

B.J. smiled, knowingly, and nodded her head gently. 

“It was an accident,” B.J. said. “But—I guess you’d know about that.” 

“Accidents happen,” Scully offered. There was no need for her to make a greater confession. 

“Indeed, they do,” B.J. said. She laughed to herself. “I just told Brian. We were meeting to talk about it. Somewhere private. Does—he know?” 

Scully knew how to keep her breathing even, most of the time, when she felt anxious. She’d trained herself to keep her emotions hidden, for the most part. She didn’t want people reading her as easily as she read most of them. She wasn’t giving herself away—at least, she didn’t imagine she was—but B.J. was as connected to her as Scully felt to the woman. Something in each of them recognized the kindred aspects of their situations. 

“No,” Scully said. “Not yet.” 

B.J. smiled to herself. 

“I can keep a secret,” she offered. She sighed, looked back in the mirror, and smoothed her clothes down. She eyed herself like she was looking for evidence of the pregnancy that hadn’t begun to show yet. Scully glanced toward the mirror, herself, and let her eyes fall over her own reflection, this time, instead of on B.J.’s reflection. It was still a secret for both of them. Eyes that were only looking at surface details would never detect the secrets that either of them harbored. 

“Brian doesn’t want it,” B.J. said. “I didn’t even have to meet with him to know that. Too much complication.” 

“What are you going to do?” Scully asked. 

“I don’t know,” B.J. admitted. “Not yet.” She looked at Scully. Her eyes seemed to look into Scully for a moment. Scully felt the uneasy need to move and escape such a penetrating stare. She turned her face, backing toward the door a half a step, and B.J. broke the visual connection between them, entirely, by using the napkin in her hand to wipe the counter like she had some concern with the cleanliness of the room. “We figure it out, right? Sheesh—I know now why my mother only had one child. Pregnancy is miserable. She told me about the morning sickness. But she never told me about the nightmares. You know?” 

Scully furrowed her brow. She didn’t know. She hadn’t officially checked—something about having another doctor confirm things made it more real than she was sure she could handle without at least a few more days to settle into the idea of things—but she assumed that she wasn’t quite as far along as B.J. She had only just begun to feel the first twinges of morning sickness, after all—a symptom she expected. But she hadn’t begun to suffer nightmares.

“Nightmares?” She prompted.

B.J. laughed to herself. It wasn’t a sincere laugh. 

“Awful,” she said. “Terrible nightmares. I didn’t tell them before but—they’re waking me up. There’s always blood everywhere. A lot of blood. Slowly, I’m aware of a location. And then a presence. I can see it’s a man. I can see—what he looks like. I can see what he’s done to the bodies.” 

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Mulder sat and listened to the information that B.J. shared with him and Scully about her nightmares. Scully thought that he might want to hear what B.J. had to say. She didn’t say as much, but he immediately recognized that she was, in her own way, saying that this was more his area than hers. Scully preferred looking for absolutely rational, scientific explanations for everything. And, even though the things they’d experienced together had definitely made her more open minded, the careful consideration of detailed nightmares, which sounded more like visions, was absolutely more Mulder’s area than Scully’s.

The moment B.J. had walked back into the room with the body, before she’d even begun to tell Mulder about the nightmares, she’d seemed struck by something. She’d taken a moment to regain herself, waving away the offered assistance of both Mulder and Scully, and then she’d immediately walked over and pointed to the body. She’d identified that the scratches on the skeleton didn’t come from the world “sister,” such as they’d expected to find in keeping with Cokely’s other confirmed murder, but, instead, said “brother” in similar script. The computer had confirmed the word was present in the scratches.

And that’s when B.J. had admitted that what she’d called dreams and nightmares didn’t only come to her when she slept.

“Sometimes it’s like—flashes,” she said. 

“Visions,” Mulder offered. He glanced at Scully. She was wide-eyed, clearly drinking everything in, but she wasn’t offering any input. Like Mulder, she would process everything that was being said, and they would discuss it later. “Have you told anyone about them?” 

B.J. shook her head. 

“I didn’t want them to think I’m crazy,” she said. 

“And the vision is what led you to find the body?” Mulder asked. B.J. nodded. “I think it’s something we have to share. It could be important to the investigation.” 

“Nobody’s going to accept visions as evidence, Mulder,” Scully offered.

“No,” Mulder agreed, “but they’ll have to accept the body and the message that the visions uncovered.” 

“I don’t understand,” B.J. said, more to herself than to either of them. “Why am I having these visions?” 

“You’ve been heavily involved with the investigations of this area,” Mulder offered. “You said your father worked on this case in the forties.” B.J. nodded, but looked at him with question. Scully looked at him with no less question on her features. “I’ve always thought that dreams are the answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask. Maybe you’ve been seeking this knowledge, and now it’s being revealed to you. Or, maybe, you were so close to the murder scene that something in your subconscious mind felt drawn to it—something revealed it to you—even though you didn’t know that you were looking for the information.” 

Mulder immediately got the telltale feeling in his body that something was strange, and that he was close to figuring something out—like he was unravelling a mystery. He’d gotten the feeling so many times in his career that he’d stopped counting how many times the sensation had been an indication that he was close. 

From B.J., he simply got a slightly uncomfortable expression. From Scully, he got the skeptical look that suggested she was thinking about how crazy she sometimes found his explanations to be. 

B.J. thanked them, and she dismissed herself with the promise that she’d let them know, immediately, if she had any other dreams, visions, or nightmares—whatever the case may be—that might interest them. She’d left them with a spare key to lock up, and they’d done just that.

It was getting late, and it was time to head back to the motel where they’d be sleeping. 

Outside, Mulder dropped a hand to the small of Scully’s back, the action hidden by the darkness, if there had even been anyone around to witness it, as he walked with her to open her car door for her. 

“Let’s pick up something to eat,” he offered. “I know you haven’t eaten anything for over half a day.” 

“You haven’t eaten either, Mulder,” Scully offered.

“I didn’t say I was going to starve myself,” he said with a laugh. “I bet they’ll let us both get food to go.” He opened the car door and Scully eyed him somewhat suspiciously. He smiled at her. The gesture was small, and it was new, but everything about their relationship—at least this level of their relationship—was new.

Scully got into the car and allowed Mulder to close the door. By the time he got in his seat, she was already buckled in and waiting for him to drive her to the only food place they’d seen since arriving in Aubrey. Before he drove anywhere, though, he sat for a moment and contemplated everything.

“You don’t believe in the visions, do you?” He asked. “You don’t believe in what I said about dreams being answers to questions that we haven’t asked yet.” 

“I’ll be honest, Mulder,” Scully said with a sigh. “I don’t know what I believe about the visions or dreams—or whatever. Right now, the only evidence we have that they’re true is that B.J. claims to have found the body after a vision, and she claims that she saw the carving on the victim’s chest in her vision.” 

“But you’re skeptical,” Mulder pressed.

“I just believe there’s something more,” Scully said. “B.J. is pregnant.” 

“You think that’s got anything to do with this?” Mulder asked.

“Pregnancy can have a lot of effects on a woman, Mulder,” Scully said. “Some things we can’t even medically predict. The hormonal changes and imbalances affect every woman at least a little bit differently, at different times, throughout her pregnancy. I don’t think we can dismiss, entirely, that there might be a medical explanation behind these nightmares or premonitions.” 

“Women sense things?” Mulder asked, teasing Scully. He could see, though, that there was a lot on her mind. She seemed to be chewing on a great deal as she sat next to him. 

“I believe they do,” Scully said. 

“Especially when they’re pregnant?” Mulder teased. “Now you’re the one with the theories, Scully.” 

“You’re right,” Scully ceded. “Still—I’m not entirely convinced that there isn’t some biological tie-in. And, Mulder? I’ve never been more convinced that women do sense things, pregnant or not, that even the most astute men simply miss entirely.” 

Mulder thought there was something in Scully’s tone of voice that was odd. Maybe, even, there was a hint of amusement. Some frustration. Still, he couldn’t quite figure out what it was that had come over Scully since they’d arrived in Aubrey. He didn’t ask her again, but he did keep working on it, like a puzzle in the back of his mind, as he took them to pick up food they could take back to the motel.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I wasn’t sure if it was going to be two or three parts. It looks like it’s definitely going to be three.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy this part! Let me know what you think! 

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Scully sighed in her sleep and shifted next to Mulder. She rolled, still wrapped in his arms, and searched out a more comfortable position. She found it, and settled against him. From her new chosen position, resting on her back, he could see her face. She was still asleep. She hadn’t woken. 

They’d gotten a room with two beds so that, when they turned in the information in for reimbursement, there would be no questions asked. The second bed, however, hadn’t been touched. In the morning, Mulder would ruffle the sheets and blankets for the benefit of the cleaning service. 

The lamp in the cheap motel room was still on. They’d never turned it off. Mulder had intended to turn it off at some point he’d simply designated as “later,” but he didn’t want to move away from her. He didn’t want to risk waking her and, more than that, he didn’t want to stop holding her. Even if he was almost certain that his left arm was dead, he wanted her to remain as close to him as she was—drawing comfort from him as she slept.

Mulder’s body still buzzed from the sex. He could still feel his lips stinging where Scully had playfully nipped them with her teeth. He could still close his eyes and feel her wrapped around him as she rode him, searching out something in particular that she was craving. He could still taste her, even, on his tongue, her flavor lingering from when he’d worked to get the perfect release, for her, that he wanted her to have. His mind still felt pleasantly fuzzy from the chemical rewards of shared orgasms. 

Scully had playfully protested sex with Mulder when he’d suggested it. She’d teasingly suggested that it wasn’t right to have sex together when they were supposed to be focused on the details of a homicide case. Mulder’s argument, of course, was that there was hardly ever a moment, between them, when they weren’t investigating something. He had argued that he thought better after the burst of dopamine that he got from an orgasm, and his mind was cleared and opened to ideas by the oxytocin that drew him to savor the moments, afterward, when they could simply remain close to one another. He’d reminded Scully, too, that she slept better after the release of both of those chemicals—and she seemed tired—so he would be sure that she got the greatest dose she could of each.

Mulder nuzzled the side of her face and kissed her cheek. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of her. The one hand he had that still felt like it even belonged to him, trailed gently down her body. He rested it on her chest, felt the steady intake and release of her breath, trailed it over her breast and felt the soft skin there, and moved it down, over her stomach, and let it slide until it came to rest on her hip. He moved her just the slightest bit closer to him, fully aware that there was really no room between them as it was.

There had been a few women in Mulder’s life—probably too many by the estimations of quite a few people. There had never been any woman, though, like Dana Scully. 

It was so early—too soon, he knew—in their relationship for him to feel the way he felt, but he felt it, just the same. He didn’t dare to tell Scully everything he felt, for fear that she’d run away, but he was already thinking of all the times he’d heard other men talk about being tied down to one woman—the old ball and chain—and how they laughed about it being, essentially, the end of life. Mulder was already beginning to daydream about how happy he would be to simply know that he would spend the rest of his life, just like this, falling asleep next to Scully. He was already convinced that he’d consider himself the luckiest man in the world to be, as they said, tied to her.

Mulder kissed the side of her face again. He nuzzled against her. She hummed—moaned, maybe—in her sleep. She was still asleep, though. He watched her face draw up in concern. It was a physical response to something troubling happening behind her eyelids. He moved his undead hand back up her body and rubbed his fingers gently against her cheek.

“Shhhh,” he whispered quietly into her ear, wondering if her mind could hear him. “It’s OK, Scully. I’m here. I’ve got you.” 

He repeated the quiet promise of protection and comfort a few more times. Slowly, the tensing in her muscles relaxed. Her face relaxed. She moved on to another dream that must have been more peaceful than the one before. Mulder didn’t know if it was his influence or not, but he liked to believe it was.

The dream reminded him B.J. Morrow and the case they’d been working with. He wondered what truth there might be to Scully’s ponderings about whether or not the pregnancy—and, maybe some distressing feelings surrounding the pregnancy—might have something to do with B.J.’s visions. He wondered, in his own way, if the pregnancy might simply work as some kind of amplification system for the things to which B.J. might already be sensitive. 

From there, as he started to grow tired, his head resting against the soft skin of Scully’s shoulder and his forehead resting against her cheek, Mulder thought about the fact that something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on had been different about Scully since they’d arrived in Aubrey. Something had been on her mind—something that had been stirred up by her interactions with B.J. 

Scully was, at times, the greatest mystery ever to Mulder, though, and the one that he most wanted to solve. Still, even if he couldn’t find the answer to every question that he had about the woman he loved, at least he could hold her while he slept. The light, he decided, closing his eyes and snuggling into Scully, could wait. 

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“You OK, Scully?” Mulder asked. “You look a little green around the gills.” 

“I’m fine,” Scully said. She winced. Mulder didn’t miss the expression. He only had to give her one look, and she caved. It had been easier than it normally was to get her to give him more than a dismissive answer. “That was the greasiest breakfast sandwich I think I’ve ever eaten.” 

Mulder’s own stomach churned, but it wasn’t the sandwich that had stirred his up. 

“Not sitting right?” He asked. It was rhetorical. The look on her face said that it wasn’t sitting right. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might be sweating a little. He was immediately concerned that this was at least a little more serious than he’d first thought when he’d started teasing her. “Hey—are you gonna be alright? You want me to pull over?” 

“No,” Scully said quickly. “No—we need to see this. Brian’s waiting.” 

Mulder didn’t pull over, but he also didn’t interrupt the concentration that Scully seemed to be putting into looking out the window and frowning deeply at the passing scenery. They’d had breakfast and were just about to head back to the lab they’d been provided to use for their work when Brian Tillman had called. 

When they got to the address provided, Mulder walked behind Scully and toward the building.

“Tillman said it looks like another murder like the one we’ve seen,” Mulder said. “Same carving. Same everything.”

“It’s got to be a copycat,” Scully said. 

“I guess we’ll see,” Mulder ceded.

Brian Tillman met them at the door. B.J. wasn’t there, and they were quickly filled in that she’d been attacked, herself, during the earliest hours of the morning. She was in the hospital now. Before allowing herself to be taken to the hospital, though, she’d insisted on communicating information to Brian about something she claimed to have learned from a dream. The information, it seemed, had turned out to be at least somewhat accurate. They all followed Brian as he led them down to where the body had been found. The body of the woman was covered with the typical, and expected, white sheet. The blood around the body was enough to indicate that there would have been no chance for survival. Brian walked down and uncovered the body by flinging back the sheet. 

Scully’s greasy breakfast sandwich got the best of her, when faced with a corpse that had “sister” cruelly carved into the chest, and she rushed back the way that they’d come with no word to any of them. Mulder quickly made an excuse for her—saying that breakfast hadn’t settled well—and he’d handled the preliminary inspection of the body and ordered that it be sent in for an autopsy. He’d made a few more suggestions to Brian about how they ought to proceed, and he’d heard what else Brian had to say about B.J.’s visions.

He waited, too, while Tillman took a call, and then he listened to the information that Brian had to share with him about another dream that B.J. had reported—and a “hunch” that had sent another officer off to investigate another possible crime scene. 

Mulder found Scully outside.

“I see you’re doing a phenomenal job of holding up the wall,” he teased as he neared her. His teasing didn’t get much of a smile out of her, though, and he had no other purpose for it than a smile, so he dropped it immediately. He offered her a handkerchief and she thanked him as she wiped her mouth with it. Concerned about her, and not at all about what anyone else might think, he reached a hand out and cradled her face. “Are you OK?” He asked.

“I’m fine,” Scully said. “I just—needed some air. I’m sorry, Mulder.” 

“You’ll get your chance to redeem yourself,” Mulder said. “Once the breakfast sandwich is a distant memory. You’ve got an autopsy this afternoon. Come on—we’ve got a few things to check out in the meantime, if you think you’re ready to say goodbye to your friend.” He gestured toward the wall, and there was the slightest hint of amusement on Scully’s features. He would take it, for now. 

She left the wall and let herself into the car. Mulder didn’t try to argue that he should open the door for her. Instead, he simply got in, buckled his own seatbelt, and cranked the car. 

“Where are we going?” Scully asked. “The hospital?” 

“Not yet,” Mulder said. “B.J. identified her attacker as Cokely.” 

“The man who committed the murders in the forties?” Scully asked. 

“One and the same,” Mulder said.

“The man who needs an oxygen tank that we talked to a couple of days ago, Mulder?” 

Scully didn’t have to say it for Mulder to understand exactly what she was saying. It was all too bizarre. And it got stranger and stranger as the information piled up. 

“We’re going to pay a visit and talk to another of Cokely’s victims,” Mulder said. “While you were gone, Tillman got a phone call. It seems that B.J.’s had a busy night with visions. She saw two different victims, in two different locations. For both, she claims to have seen the same perpetrator. Now—we just saw victim number one. While we were looking at this one, though, Tillman sent a couple of his men to follow up on B.J.’s other lead.”

“They found another body,” Scully offered, filling in part of the story for Mulder. 

“If B.J.’s correct, we’ll find that they’re the remains of Agent Ledbetter, who is believed to have died in the forties,” Mulder said. “B.J. positively identified Cokely as her attacker, but she identified him from his mugshot taken in the forties.” 

“Cokely doesn’t have the ability to time travel, Mulder,” Scully said. “The only way that would be possible would be if—if it was someone who looked like Cokely.” 

“I’ve asked them to go ahead and run DNA on the samples they took from underneath B.J.’s fingernails,” Mulder said. “I knew you’d support that idea. They’re also going to run samples on the victim’s body, in there, even before she’s sent over for you to perform the autopsy.” 

“You don’t believe we’ll find out it’s Cokely,” Scully said. 

“Maybe not Cokely, himself,” Mulder said. 

“A relative?” Scully asked. He didn’t answer her, but she didn’t need an answer. The wheels were already turning in her head. That was usually all he had to do—get Scully thinking, and she was bound to come up with a lot of ideas that, if nothing else, jump started Mulder’s ability to think of other explanations. “All kinds of traits can be passed down biologically. There are even studies that are examining the possibility of inheriting trauma and memories from our parents and grandparents. Maybe we could even inherit their psychosis. It’s possible that whoever attacked B.J. simply looked like Cokely because they were, in some way, related to him.” 

“There was one woman to survive Cokely’s attack in the forties,” Mulder said. “And I’ve got a hunch that she might have something that helps us put together at least some of the pieces in this case.” 

Mulder drove for a while, following the directions that he’d memorized from Brian, and left Scully to chew over the information they were speculating about while he pondered something very different. He had to work up the courage, though, to bring his own thoughts to light—especially since he didn’t want to be seen as insensitive to the events that were taking place. 

As he’d told Scully before, though, between the two of them, they may never have a moment when there wasn’t something happening that should have all of their attention. 

“Do you believe in the visions and dreams now?” Mulder asked.

“I don’t understand them,” Scully said, “but I have to believe there’s something to them. You could argue that B.J. might have been responsible for the death of that woman. You could even argue that she may have made it look like she was attacked, herself. But the fact of the matter is that she couldn’t be responsible for those murders from the forties. She had to know about the location of the bodies in some way and, right now, a vision, or a dream, is the only explanation that we have. As of right this minute, though, I don’t have an explanation for where those visions come from.” 

“What if—visions really do come because…we want to see something so badly, Scully? What if dreams are just what I said they were yesterday?” 

Scully laughed quietly to herself.

“Did you dream about the answer to all of this last night, Mulder?” Scully asked. “Because—I know that’s what was on your mind most of the night.” 

Mulder’s heart pounded in his chest. He reached his hand over. He touched Scully’s thigh. He found her hand and caught it in his. She let him hold it. 

“It wasn’t on my mind nearly as much as maybe it should have been,” Mulder admitted. 

“You eat, sleep, and breathe work,” Scully said, entirely without accusation. 

“Not as much as I used to,” Mulder said, defending himself. “Not in the same way. And last night, I had very different things on my mind. Maybe it’s the Black Motel that stirs them up, but I had some pretty deep dreams, too, Scully.” 

Her hand tightened around his and released its pressure quickly—almost like a spasm.

“What’d you dream?” Scully asked. “You know—dreams can usually be explained by things that are on our minds. Things we’ve heard, or thought, or interacted with throughout the day. Ideas that are already in our minds when we go to bed.” 

“Maybe,” Mulder ceded. “Everything I dreamed I can explain away with rational thought and some careful attempt to make it nothing more than the manifestation of things we talked about…or I thought about…yesterday.”

“But you’d rather not explain things away with rational thought,” Scully offered, her voice going quieter with each word. “What did you dream, Mulder?” 

Mulder smiled to himself. The dream had been wonderful. It had been one of the nicest dreams that he’d ever had. Still, when he’d woken from the dream, he’d woken in something like a state of panic. If the dream were true, it meant a lot of things would be changing, dramatically, in his life. It meant there was a great deal for them to handle—hopefully together. 

Still, he smiled to himself because the dream—although a prediction of a lot of possible work to be done in their relationship—had been beautiful.

He squeezed Scully’s hand. 

The little country road was quiet. Linda Thibedeaux was quite old, but she’d still be there when they arrived, even if it took them a few minutes longer than they’d expected to get there. Mulder chose a place to pull off where the ground was even and they’d run no risk of getting the tires stuck. He slowed the car and pulled it gently off onto the shoulder. 

“Mulder? What are you doing?” Scully asked when Mulder switched off the engine.

He laughed to himself. She almost seemed afraid. He knew she couldn’t be afraid of him. He’d never given her any reason to fear him, and he never would. Her palpable anxiety only made him feel a little more nervous as it communicated, almost directly to his nervous system, that she might have already suspected what he was going to say—and she might be confirming it without even knowing that’s what she was doing.

Mulder unbuckled his seatbelt so that he could face her easily and without restraint. He reached a hand out and touched her face. For a second, she was wide-eyed. Then she relaxed, as she often did, when he touched her. It was the same as the night before when, in her dream, she’d found some comfort and escape, from whatever she’d feared, by hearing his voice and recognizing his presence.

“I dreamed about you, Scully,” Mulder said. 

She let him see the smile. 

“You saw me all day, Mulder,” Scully offered. “And I was the last person you saw last night—unless you had other things going on once I went to sleep.” 

He returned the smile, his churning stomach making him feel a bit uneasy.

“I dreamed we were together,” Mulder said. “Really together. Married. Domestic. Comfortable. The whole nine yards, Scully.” He laughed to himself. “And before you try to explain that away for me, let me do it for you. I was thinking about—how much I love you, just before I went to sleep. I was thinking about what the future might hold for us. If I’m lucky.” The smile he got, this time, flashing across her lips was softer. 

“I love you, too,” she said, almost whispering the words. “But I don’t—understand…”

“I saw you in the dream, Scully,” Mulder said. “But there was one little difference between you in the dream and—I fell asleep thinking about the fact that I’ve been feeling like there’s something different about you. Something going on with you.” He forced a smile at her because she’d begun to look a little uncomfortable. Her eyes were darting around, mostly watching his lips for signs of something. “Call it a sixth sense,” he teased, to put her at ease. “I wanted to know what was going on with you, and the dream showed me something that was different.”

“I haven’t changed,” Scully offered.

“You were pregnant,” Mulder said. There was no reason to bite back the words. “In my dream, Scully? You were pregnant.” 

He saw the change in her expression. 

“We talked about pregnancy yesterday,” Scully said. “About B.J.’s pregnancy. The effects of pregnancy on women, and the changes they can undergo as a result of chemical and hormonal imbalances.” 

“It wasn’t B.J. in my dream, Scully,” Mulder said. He held her hand in his. His heart pounded. He knew the answer he wanted, even as he found the words to ask the question—and it wasn’t an answer that would release him from any of the responsibility that seemed to be on the verge of falling on his shoulders. “Are you—pregnant?” 

Scully looked away from him, but he’d already seen the answer, as plain as day, when it flashed across her face.

“I haven’t had much time to deal with it,” Scully said, her voice sounding like it was cracking a little. “I didn’t know how you would feel about it…so soon.” 

“How I would feel about it? Scully?” 

He turned her face back toward him. There were tears pooling around her lower lids, but she was willing them not to escape. He moved, free from his seatbelt, to kiss her, and she pulled away from him. He asked her, with nothing more than a look, to explain herself. 

“Mulder, I was just sick,” she said.

Mulder laughed to himself.

“For once in my life, Scully,” Mulder said, “I don’t care at all.” She allowed him a tight-lipped kiss, and he accepted it for what it was. What meant more to him, in that moment, than the kiss had, was the sigh that escaped her lips when the kiss had broken. She’d clearly drawn in a breath and released it, sending out some of the anxiety that had clearly been choking her. “A baby. We’ve got a lot to talk about.” 

“We do,” Scully agreed. “But—first, we’ve got to solve a murder. I think we’ve got a little while to handle everything that goes with the baby.”


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Here we go, the last chapter of my “what if” rewrite of “Aubrey.” 

If you read, I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Mulder knew, in his gut, that a confession and first discussion of something as serious as a pregnancy should have come with something more. There should have been candlelight. There should have been a nice dinner. Maybe Scully would have wanted to share the news with Mulder in some perfectly designed and executed way. Maybe, in some poetic world, Mulder would have taken a knee to propose to Scully. 

Instead, it had happened like most everything else had happened in their lives—surrounded by the mystery of their current case.

Scully was a good sport about it, though, and if she’d felt that anything about the confession had been spoiled or ruined, she hadn’t mentioned it. She’d dived directly back into solving the case in front of them, and she hadn’t let up.

It had been Scully that had figured out that Linda Thibedeaux, who had been raped by Cokely in 1945, had given birth to Cokely’s illegitimate child. She had pressed the woman about it, and Thibedeaux had confessed that, upon finding herself pregnant with the child, she hadn’t known what to do. Her husband had tried to convince her to forgive the child for his father’s sins, and for them to simply raise the child as their own, but she’d known that she couldn’t do that. Instead, she’d given the child up for adoption, and she’d decided that she wanted to know nothing about what became of him. It was easier that way, for her. It was the only way she could live with what had happened to her. 

Both Scully and Mulder had felt like they were getting closer to something. Cokely had a child, somewhere, and it was entirely possible that it was that child that had attacked B.J. and had murdered the recent victim. They had no explanation for the visions, but at least they had some possible explanation for B.J.’s positive identification of a young Cokely. 

Mulder put in a call to the adoption agency to get the records that could identify the child that Linda Thibedeaux had given up for adoption, and could give some information about his whereabouts, and Scully had gone to take care of the autopsy—an autopsy which turned up nothing out of the ordinary and only confirmed for them that the killer was either Cokely himself, which seemed highly unlikely, or a copycat killer. 

The records they’d ordered would have to be found, and the DNA testing they’re requested would have to be done. Aubrey, Missouri was a small town and things worked slowly there. They accepted that they would have to simply wait things out, and both of them had gotten some fitful sleep that had left them both awake and exhausted at a very early hour. 

Mulder slipped out of the room while Scully was in the shower and returned with coffee in hand. She’d thanked him as he’d offered her the paper to-go cup.

“You know,” she mused, sipping the coffee while she sat on the edge of the bed they never used, and whose covers they destroyed every morning for the benefit of the cleaning lady, with her hair damp and her bathrobe partially open, “I’m not supposed to be drinking caffeine.” 

Mulder smiled to himself, reminded of the little secret that they were simply not talking about because they were too overwhelmed with everything else they had to sort. 

“Good thing I knew that,” Mulder said, sitting on the other bed, facing Scully. “It’s decaffeinated. And, so you didn’t have to suffer alone, mine is decaf, too. Cheers.” 

Scully smiled to herself and touched her cup to his, accepting the silly toast and indulging him. Mulder rubbed at his eyes. They felt grainy from the spotty sleep they’d gotten the night before. It was going to be a long day if he had to forego caffeine entirely, but he could do it in solidarity with Scully. It was, after all, his child that was robbing her of her right to guzzle down a few cups of coffee before eight.

“I know we haven’t talked about it, Mulder,” Scully said, “but…I guess I should say that I haven’t had much time to think about it, and I don’t want to pressure you in any way because I know this wasn’t planned but…I’d like to keep the baby.” She shook her head at him. “If you’re not comfortable with things, then I’m entirely comfortable telling everyone that the father was some—man I knew.”

Mulder raised his eyebrows at her in surprise.

“You want my son or daughter to be illegitimate?” Mulder asked.

He saw her cheeks flush pink.

“You want it?” She asked.

“I’ll be honest with you, Scully,” Mulder said. “I haven’t had much time to think about it and iron out the details, and it wasn’t planned, but I already told you I love you, and I meant that. So, I do want it. If that’s all right with you.” 

Scully smiled to herself. She covered over the smile by drinking from the paper cup. 

“I like that,” she said. “I love you, too. I guess that’s all we need to know for now. There’s time to—to iron out all the other details, as you say.” 

There certainly wasn’t much time for them, then. The phone rang almost immediately, and Mulder answered it. He listened to what the deputy on the other end of the line had to say, and then he hung up the phone. 

“That was one of the deputies. Brian Tillman’s wife was attacked last night. She’s in the hospital. Alive, but unable to name her attacker. She’s got the same carvings.” 

“No news from B.J. about a vision this time,” Scully said.

“No news yet,” Mulder said. 

“I don’t trust the visions if I hear about them only after the murders and attacks take place,” Scully said. “It’s too easy to see something and say ‘I knew that would happen.’”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Mulder said. “I’m going to hop in the shower. See if I can’t—clear my head a little bit.”

Mulder was frustrated with the speed at which things were being returned to them. He knew that they could expect little else, but another attack only pointed to the possibility of another on the horizon. The longer they went without figuring out was happening, the greater the chance there was that another body would be found. 

Beyond the murders and attacks, Mulder had a great deal more on his mind. He stood under the hot water and pondered things while he waited for any indication that the sleepy town of Aubrey was going to provide them with any of the information they needed. 

He and Scully were talking about it now—a baby. They were having conversations about a future and, though neither of them knew exactly what that future might look like, it was clear that they were in it, and they were in it together.

When Mulder got out of the shower, he found Scully mostly dressed and scrambling to finish getting ready.

“Get dressed,” Scully said. “We don’t have much time.” 

“Much time for what?” Mulder asked.

“We got a call from the lab. The blood from the murder victim, and the blood from B.J.’s attacker came back as a genetic match for Cokely on several markers,” Scully said. 

“You’re telling me that Cokely—decrepit old man, Cokely—is responsible for the murder and two attacks in the past forty-eight hours?” Mulder asked. It was impossible to believe.

“That’s what I would be telling you,” Scully said, “except I also got a call from the adoption agency. Apparently, they were trying to reach me the whole time I was talking to the lab and the motel doesn’t have call waiting. It turns out that the child that Linda Thibedeaux gave up for adoption was B.J. Morrow’s father.” 

Mulder was almost dressed, himself, and he had already accepted that both of them were going to go into their day a touch more disheveled than they would normally like. 

“But he’s dead,” Mulder said. Suddenly, it struck him, before Scully even had to say a word. “B.J. would share Cokely’s DNA. And if what that article you were talking about the other night says is true, then it’s possible that these visions are part of some sort of inherited psychological information.” Another layer of realization slammed into him as he grabbed keys and followed Scully outside, stopping only long enough to lock the motel room door before heading for the car. “That would mean that B.J.’s the murderer and the attacker.” 

Scully didn’t speak until they’d gotten into the car. 

“It would also mean that she’s uncovering everything that Cokely’s done, but she’s got a new set of victims,” Scully offered. “I believe she’s trying to wipe away everything that has anything to do with Cokely, first and foremost. I think the first place she’ll be driven to go is to Linda Thibedeaux’s house. She was the only living victim of Cokely’s, and it would stand to reason that she might have some genetic drive to finish what Cokely started.”

Mulder needed no further prompting. He cranked the car and started in the direction of the woman’s house. 

“We should notify Brian,” Mulder said.

“I already made the call,” Scully said. “The moment I connected everything. They’ll meet us there.”

“But what about the new victims?” Mulder mused. “What’s driving B.J.’s choice of new victims?” 

“I can’t be certain. It could just be a result of psychosis. Her selections could be random.” 

“But that’s not what you think.” 

She’s distraught,” Scully offered. “Distressed. Whatever you want to call it. All of this started with her pregnancy. It’s possible that the pregnancy, itself, was some kind of catalyst for the visions, compulsions, and psychosis. Brian Tillman might have more answers than we have, but her attack of his wife makes it clear that—it might be something related to the pregnancy. Maybe, if we knew a bit more about the politics of Aubrey, Missouri, we might have a little more knowledge of how the female murder victim fits into B.J.’s pregnancy drama.” 

“That means Brian might be in danger, too,” Mulder offered.

“More than likely,” Scully ceded.

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Linda Thibedeaux had been shaken up, but unharmed when they’d arrived. At first, she’d found it difficult to put together any kind of coherent words about what had happened. Mulder and Brian had searched the house, while Scully had gotten the old woman off the floor and helped her to a place where she could sit comfortably and rest. 

Finally, she’d told Scully that B.J. had been there, and that she’d had a razor blade like the one that Cokely had clearly preferred when he’d been on his own spree. It had seemed that she’d been intent to finish what Cokely had started, just as Scully and Mulder had suspected. Linda claimed to have pleaded with her, begging for her life, and had identified B.J. as her granddaughter. That had only seemed to anger B.J. more—something that Scully considered a strong indication that some of B.J.’s personal contributions to her psychotic states were related to her feelings about her illegitimate pregnancy and, perhaps, illegitimate pregnancies in general—and she’d moved in to murder the old woman.

In the end, it was the carving that had stopped her. Linda Thibedeaux said that B.J. had been distraught, upon seeing that the carving on her chest matched her own—clearly something she’d done to herself, now that they knew the truth, during some kind of psychotic episode—and she’d loudly declared that he had to stop. He had to be stopped.

The brief interview with Linda Thibedeaux had been informative enough that they’d left her in the care of a deputy, and they’d all rushed to Cokely’s house, convinced that the old man was likely the next victim of B.J. She would want to end this and, in her mind, she would be convinced that the only way to put a stop to it all would be to murder Cokely.

At Cokely’s house, Mulder had been out the car before Scully, and before Brian. While Scully had done a quick walk around the house to check to see if they might find B.J. outside, and while Brian had checked her vehicle and the small shed behind Cokely’s house, Mulder had gone directly inside. 

The moment that Scully had been sure that B.J. wasn’t outside, she’d known the woman must be inside. She’d rushed into the house, with Brian close behind her, determined to offer whatever backup she could to Mulder. 

She’d gotten there in time to see Mulder on the floor with B.J. on top of him—the blade against his throat. 

Scully’s heart slammed down into her stomach as her stomach came up like it intended to try to escape through her throat. 

“Freeze! FBI!” She yelled, falling back on knee-jerk reactions and instinct. She eased closer. There was something desperate clawing inside of her that wanted B.J. away from Mulder—far away from him. She wished she could barrel toward the woman and simply knock her away from him. The blade was too close to his throat, though, and there was every bit as good a chance that she’d cut Scully’s throat in a fight as there was that she’d cut Mulder’s on the ground.

“You think you can just get away with it?” B.J. yelled, clearly going through an episode that she was acting out with Mulder. “You think you can just—throw them away? Do what you want and…never pay for it?”

“Let him go, B.J.,” Scully called out. She cast a glance in Brian’s direction as he eased over to try to get a look at Cokely on the floor. B.J. glanced back at Brian, looked back at Mulder, and screamed at him in frustration. 

“It’s your responsibility, too!” She snarled. “It’s not all on me. I’m not going to be responsible. Not by myself. You’re going to pay, too!” 

Scully only took in a few of B.J.’s words as she threatened Mulder. She only needed to take in a few of them. She was quick to unravel what she imagined was taking place in the episode that was currently playing out in B.J.’s mind. Brian’s presence was problematic. B.J. might be seeing him in Mulder or, even just knowing about Scully’s pregnancy, she might be projecting her frustrations with Brian on Mulder.

“Let him go, B.J.,” Scully said. “He’s one of the good ones, B.J. He is. He wants to take responsibility. He wants to be responsible. He doesn’t want to pass that off on anyone else. He doesn’t want to put that on anyone else’s shoulders—not the responsibility or the blame. Let him go, B.J. Please.”

B.J. was clearly fighting with Scully’s words as they conflicted with whatever was going on inside her. Scully stepped carefully closer to the woman. She could see a trickle of blood on Mulder’s neck. She’d nicked him, but one wrong move and she would cut his throat. If Scully fired on her, there was a chance that she would kill Mulder in her death throes. 

Scully saw Brian, after a quick glance, indicate that Cokely was dead. He stepped away from the body, and thankfully, put himself out of B.J.’s line of sight entirely.

“Let him go,” Scully continued to urge, watching her tone. “He’s gone, B.J. Cokely’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt anyone. And we can get you help. For you. For your baby. But Mulder is not who you think he is. He’s one of the good guys, B.J. He’s not who you think he is. And you don’t have to do this anymore…”

B.J. glanced back toward Cokely’s corpse and then back at Mulder. Then she relaxed. She moved the blade away from Mulder’s throat. She rolled off of him. Brian stepped forward, quickly, as his backup arrived and rushed into the house. Scully let them take B.J. She let them handle that situation. She dropped down on her knees, immediately, next to Mulder and pressed her fingers against the nick at his neck. She was relieved to see that it was so minor that it stopped bleeding, immediately, under even the slightest bit of pressure.

Mulder, slightly overcome from the ordeal, leaned his head against Scully’s chest. 

Her stomach churned, only slightly, over the step she was about to take. But Mulder had said that he wanted this, and she knew that she wanted this, and she was overcome for the moment. Scully tipped Mulder’s head up with the hand that had brushed away the light trickle of blood, and she pressed her lips to his. She didn’t deny him, either, when he deepened the kiss.

And neither of them offered any explanation to Brian Tillman, or any of his deputies, when they broke the kiss only to begin filling the lawmen in on the details that they’d missed about the case—details that had helped Scully and Mulder put it all together.

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

“Give me your bag,” Mulder said, reaching his hands out in Scully’s direction as he stopped by their seats. 

“You don’t have to do that, Mulder,” Scully said.

“Put your bag in the overhead compartment?” He asked, amused. “I do, actually. They require it.” 

“I mean—you don’t have to do things for me because I’m…pregnant,” she said. She added the last word in a lower voice because she still wasn’t accustomed to saying it. It still made his stomach do a strange little move when she said it. “I don’t want you to coddle me.” 

“I’m not,” Mulder said, laughing to himself. “I’m doing it because you’re five foot three. Go ahead and sit down.” 

Scully relinquished her bag, despite her protests, and sat down. Mulder sat beside her, as soon as the bags were secure, and settled in for the short flight. 

After a moment of sitting there, he dared to reach his hand over and take Scully’s hand in his. They’d decided that, when they returned, they would make an announcement about their relationship, and the resulting pregnancy, so that the bureau couldn’t suggest they were attempting to keep it a secret for any reason. Then they would continue with business as usual, as far as the FBI was concerned.

The rest, they’d work out together. Mulder had a good feeling, though, that things were going to work out well for all of them.

“Hey—I know you probably haven’t started thinking about it, yet,” Mulder offered, “but what do you think about Aubrey? If it’s a girl?” 

“You’re serious?” Scully asked, staring at him. 

He smiled at her. 

“It’s a nice name,” Mulder said. 

“I never want to think about Aubrey again,” Scully said with a sigh. She sat back, closing her eyes. “This has been a nightmare.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s been all bad,” Mulder offered.

“I thought she was going to kill you,” Scully said, opening her eyes and looking at him sincerely. “I just—want to forget about this place. And this case. It’s closed. Let’s just…put it behind us.” 

Mulder swallowed back a little amusement at the thought that crossed his mind. He wondered whether or not some of Scully’s feelings might be driven by hormones. If she considered him loading her bag in the overhead as coddling, she was probably not in the mood to have him discussing her hormones, so he kept the thought to himself. Instead, he dared to raise her hand to his lips and pressed a quick kiss on her knuckles. 

“I don’t mind forgetting about B.J. and the possibility of inherited trauma and psychosis,” Mulder offered. “But I’m always going to have a soft spot for Aubrey, I think. That’s why I suggested that we at least consider the name. After all, it’s the place where…you told me that I’m about to have the most important job of my life.” 

A faint smile played at Scully’s lips. She looked straight ahead, focusing on the back of the seat in front of her. 

“It’s not a terrible name, Mulder,” she offered, meeting him somewhere in the middle, as she always did. 

They had plenty of time to figure things out, of course, but at least they could agree on one thing. They were in this together.


End file.
